Swaying Gamers @ Washington Post

The company flew Masson and about 60 other writers in from as far away as Australia and Japan to give them an early look at the company's Fallout 3, scheduled for release late next year.
In addition to an hour-long demo and chats with the game's designers, the trip included a two-night stay in downtown's swank Helix Hotel, dinner at Logan Tavern and a private party at a nightclub in Adams Morgan. Airfare, hotel, food, drinks and shuttle bus were provided, courtesy of Bethesda Softworks. Although a few attendees paid their own way, most did not.

That's not a new thing. Editors of magazines often get interesting stuff.

An old editorial ("old" means here it was written in 2004) in the German magazine called "Gee" says that the goodies the editors often get (in this article there were postcards from all over the world sent by "Lara Croft" mentioned, for example) shoud rather go into Collector's Editions, or even better . Into normal editions, like it was ages ago.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
That's not a new thing. Editors of magazines often get interesting stuff.

They're not editors, at least not all of them. One of the invitees, the guy from critical-hits.com NMA talked to, has a normal dayjob and runs the place on a volunteer basis. The place has about 1/4th the hits of NMA. I asked Matt what was up with him getting invited and not us, no reply.

Anyway, back on topic; yeah, it's pretty usual. But maybe my industry standards are outdated, but I'd think a press event 1.5 years before release in which they had a 4-hour demo display and discussion would mean giving the press lunch, dinner, one night at a normal hotel and maybe a flight over…but this 4-hour press event was surrounded by 2 nights at a swanky hotel, a private party and paid-for dinners. Isn't that a bit much?

Well it IS about influencing these people into liking you and your game. Its a mild form of bribery and thus probably works exceedingly well, because it doesn't even leave a bad conscience.
Ultimately the responsibility remains with the journalists, though - do they actually hold back bad news becasue they want to be invited to the next party too, or do they just take whats offered, and accept loss of privileges when it comes down to it.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
Ultimately the responsibility remains with the journalists, though - do they actually hold back bad news becasue they want to be invited to the next party too, or do they just take whats offered, and accept loss of privileges when it comes down to it.

From the status of the gaming industry…from the fact that some of the previews only just fell short of giving the game the GotY award based on an 1-hour demo…I'd say the journalists aren't living up to their responsibilities.

But that's hardly anything new. Gaming journalism is a joke. We all know that.

Originally Posted by Brother None
From the status of the gaming industry…from the fact that some of the previews only just fell short of giving the game the GotY award based on an 1-hour demo…I'd say the journalists aren't living up to their responsibilities.

But that's hardly anything new. Gaming journalism is a joke. We all know that.

Yes. Which is why we hang out on sites like this, right? Which on the other hand is gaming journalism too.

It reminds me of politics, actually. Alan Alda had a great line in The West Wing's final season: "Hey, if you can't take their money, drink their booze and then go out and vote against them, you're in the wrong business."

Maybe politicians should think about reviewing video games when they retire.

— Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on. But it don't snow here. It stays pretty green. I'm going to make a lot of money, then I'm going to quit this crazy scene. — [Joni Mitchell]

Originally Posted by Brother None
That's actually a good question. Compare RPGWatch numbers to those of two invitees

Interesting stats—I had no idea 26 per cent of users here are from South Africa….and the percentage from Europe is too low to list?

Your numbers at NMA seem to have gone up since the FO3 debate. I hope that's a good thing for you guys.

Edit: I guess i should at least say something on topic to this thread, but it kind of turns my stomach to see this aspect of our society. When I was a kid, there was a big scandal in radio. It involved disc jockeys who were paid bribes to play records and extoll the 'artists'—IIRC it was called "Payola" and people ended up doing jail time for it.

Why they do it is simple. They secure themselves a lot of positive press and have full control over what the press can see. Plus the event is not as expensive as it seems. Their own people are already their and donīt have travel. The organizational costs are peanuts. Something similar at or attached to the E3 or GC wouldnīt be less expensive, while hundreds of other games would compete for press attention.
Weīre talking about several million readers worldwide. Gamestar for example sells 250k and is read by a similar no. of people. All articles based on the event will at least be mildly positive, most very positive.